Customer Reviews

Jackals In Iron

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Larsen's Jackals in Iron is a "must read" for the avid history buff and for those who have a hankering for distinguished story-telling at it's best. In impressive rich detail, every turn of the page expounds the history of the Norman incursion of England amongst other notable battles, chronicling the lives and actions of heroes, miscreants and citizens caught in the middle of life-altering movements of nations.

At the outset of the novel (1100 A.D.), we become acquainted with the principal character - Count Guy of Ponthieu - a "worldly hardened warrior" advanced in age and held in high esteem by his comrades. Along with his youthful wife Estelle, the Count is invited on a sojourn to the abbey of Saint-Evroult, to recount his life experiences, scribed for posterity by the monks residing there. As he relates his past in detail (the atrocities committed during war, the conquests, the family conflicts, and the inner battles, etc.) to the eager party of copyists, we are treated to a retroactive narrative. We become deeply entrenched in the Count's read-worthy experiences, and consequences of his past decisions.

The reader is also generously provided with a glossary of terms, as well as lineage flow charts and maps, which I personally found very helpful in better understanding certain details of the story. They also added much the richness of the read. Without a doubt, the extensive detail and research that must have gone into penning such a novel will astound even the most picky of history aficionados.

Larsen unquestionably deserves the sincerest of kudos for this masterpiece. Jackals in Iron is highly recommended for those who prefer a more `meatier' read that is most enjoyable

Well written. Interesting characters, well thought out and developed. Be prepared to back up and reread or read slowly: there is a lot of information in this book. But to those who enjoy a good historical ( medieval ) novel, this one should please. There is little of the hollywood-type gratuitous violence, but the action is vivid, especially the climactic battle of Hastings. The glossary is helpful, as are the family trees and simplified period maps. The book has some flaws, but none of them are of major importance. Taken altogether it is a good piece of work for a first book.

Mr Larsen certainly knows his stuff, this is a brilliant book - very well researched and easy to read. Packed full of historically correct information that gives a definite atmosphere of being right there as it happens.

This book would be extremely useful to anyone studying this period of English and/or French history, without them having to suffer the boredom of dry bare facts.

I wanted to like this novel, but I found it practically unreadable. I have enjoyed Mr. Larsen's historical writings on his website, and his extensive knowledge of medieval history is displayed in this book, but his skills as a novelist are rudimentary.

Any time you feel it necessary to list over twenty "principal" characters, you have too much material for a single novel. Far too much of the narrative is taken up with summaries of events, whether key to the plot or providing background for characters' motives. This is both poor story-telling and another sign of having too much material. The characterization is done well enough overall, but suffers from the dullness of the summary-style narration and also from the difficulty of keeping track of so many characters and their roles in different events. There are discomfiting inconsistencies of language, where strikingly modern words or usages ("no flies on" someone, "hackneyed", "businessman") appear among the expected archaisms. In addition, some archaic words used in the text do not appear in the glossary.

Unfortunately for Mr. Larsen, Agreka Books is barely one step above a vanity press: it provides marketing but no editing, apparently not even proofreading. The book contains errors that spellcheck should have caught ("her's"), as well as the spellcheck-immune ("it's" for "its", "poured over" for "pored over", "breath" for "breathe"). Then there are problems that any editor or writing teacher would catch, such as redundancies ("openly accuse him to his face", "cruelly mutilated"), errors of language (referring to a man as "in the family way", "fangs are drawn"), and re-telling the same incident in almost the same language (the childhood meeting between the narrator and William of Normandy). In addition the layout is amateurish, with extra blank lines and italicized passages appearing for no apparent reason, extra spaces next to parentheses, and no proper chapter headings. It looks like a Microsoft Word document formatted without knowing how or caring to change the font or font size or correct the direction of the apostraphe before an abbreviated year (" '58 ").

With the support of a professional editor, "Jackals in Iron" could have made a good trilogy. As it is, it reads more like a rough draft.

As some other reviews have stated there are a plethora of characters to try and keep up with. I do not fault this as most are historical personages and they are included to give some idea of the chaotic doings of the time. Making deals, immediately breaking deals and general comings & goings across Northern Europe & England. I enjoyed the read but as one reviewer as noted you have to back up & reread from time to time. This is one of the only books I have found with the whole complement of personages. Gives a good impression of general chaos prevailing in that time and gets better the further into it you get. A good coverage of the battle and the lead up to it and the author attains that special something that we all look for in a good book. In my opinion money well spent.

The authentic feel of this book only hints at the deep research author Merlin Douglas Larsen must have done into the life and times of Count Guy of Ponthieu, who writes his memoirs in the year 1100. Now, as all students know, the Norman conquest of England culminated in 1066 with the Battle of Hastings, where William the Conqueror struck Harold in the eye with a lance and won the battle.

The elder military nobleman tells how he became intangled in the Norman invasions. The book is written as a tale told, so the action is all from Count Guy's point of view and reads almost as a diary. This, plus the well-researched background give this book the feel that it was written on parchment and really just unearthed underneath the altar of some abbey to be translated for scholars to argue over.

But memoir-like tone aside, the book is packed with action, battles and political maneuvering. It will probably appeal to men a bit more than women, since this is a book about war and not a romantic-style historical drama. Readers who like such books as "Pillars of the Earth" will probably enjoy "Jackals in Iron."

Set in England in 1100 A.D., a generation after the Norman Conquest, Jackals In Iron is a historical novel of oppression, survival, and vengeance. A dramatic saga, firmly rooted in history and events, of one man's struggle against an irresistible force. Author Merlin Douglas Larsen has deftly crafted an engaging saga of pivotal battles and strange alliances against a meticulously presented historical background. Superbly written, Jackals In Iron is one of those novels that is a riveting read from cover to cover. This is the stuff of which Hollywood movies and television mini-series are made!